05/23/2026
A MEMORIAL DAY MESSAGE FROM COCHISE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
251 years ago, in a small field in the town of Lexington, just outside of Boston, eight men: John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathan Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Jonas Parker and Asahel Porter, became the first Americans to die for what would become the start of the “Great American Experiment”.
That experiment was the novel concept of a country built on the notion of self-governance, individual liberty, and the rule of law.
Since that 19th day of April 1775 over 646,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have given their lives for the noble causes of liberty and freedom. Those men and women represent the price that has been paid to maintain that freedom. Their lives ended in places such as Bunker Hill and Yorktown, Fort McHenry (where the Star Spangled Banner was written), the Alamo, Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood and the Argonne Forest, Pearl Harbor and Omaha Beach, the Chosin Reservoir and Inchon, the Ia Drang Valley and Khe Sanh, Dhahran and Khafji, Tora Bora and Takur Ghar, Fallujah and Ramadi, and most recently, in Kuwait where six American soldiers were killed in an Iranian drone strike.
They are no longer with us, but on Monday, Memorial Day, we have an opportunity to honor all of them and their sacrifice.
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors respectfully asks the good and noble residents of Cochise County to take a moment on Memorial Day to pause and reflect on the sacrifice they made for us, and for our freedom. We must remember that freedom isn’t free and that the enemies of freedom will constantly try to take it so it must be diligently defended, at times with the ultimate sacrifice.
God bless the souls of the fallen as we remember their courage, their sacrifice, and the loved ones carrying their legacy forward. We will never forget.
We end with the words of America’s 40th President, Ronald Reagan:
“We must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have.
As for the enemies of Freedom, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, we will sacrifice for it, we will not surrender for it now or ever. We are Americans."
District 1 Supervisor
Tom Crosby
District 2 Supervisor
Kathleen Gomez
District 3 Supervisor
Frank Antenori